The proposal sparked criticism because it would drop a minority spending requirement for the basic, 10-year tax break. However, it would double the break, to 20 years, if a company spent 50 percent on disadvantaged businesses.

Smith, president of FedEx Trade Networks and son of FedEx’s founder, released a draft of the proposed Memphis Opportunity Package on Twitter. It’s aimed at wooing corporate headquarters, back offices or advanced manufacturing projects that have eluded the community in recent years.

Smith described it as “a narrowly tailored test to see if we can attract in high-wage spaces we’re not winning today (i.e., nothing to lose) and to see if incentivizing MWBE (minority) spend actually grows it.”

The proposal is envisioned as a new tool in the box of incentives offered by the Economic Development Growth Engine of Memphis and Shelby County (EDGE). Tax abatement reduces property taxes for a fixed time to attract new investment.

The proposal comes as debate swirls about economic development and the EDGE organization, and it follows a recent community-wide discussion of lagging economic progress for people of color, 50 years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in Memphis.

For 10-year incentives in the desired categories, the plan would waive EDGE’s current minority/women-owned business spending requirements, the draft shows.

It would offer companies longer periods of reduced taxes if they meet more aggressive minority/women business targets, topping out at 25 years, with state approval, for a project spending 55 percent or more with disadvantaged businesses.

The proposal sparked a testy Twitter exchange between Smith and Wendi C. Thomas, a journalist and MLK50.com editor and publisher, who tweeted, "What would MLK think of a plan that could jeopardize the few crumbs black businesses get? Would he call for a boycott?"

Smith, City Council chairman Berlin Boyd and Shelby County Commission chairwoman Heidi Shafer crafted the plan, which was initially presented by Boyd in a meeting Friday.

The EDGE board's current incentives have a disadvantaged business spending requirement of 25 percent of construction and site work costs plus 15 percent of the company's projected tax savings from the incentive. The incentive can be extended up to two additional years by increased minority spending.

Meanwhile, council member Philip Spinosa Jr. called Friday’s meeting where the proposal was unveiled “positive momentum” and said he wasn’t prepared yet to submit a proposed restructuring of EDGE for council consideration.

“We’re losing the economic development game,” Spinosa said Tuesday during a council economic development committee meeting. “It’s not about destroying EDGE. It’s about putting the right people in place and processes in place.”

Spinosa two weeks ago said he planned to offer an amendment to the EDGE ordinance that would have the agency’s president report directly to its board, rather than city and county mayors.

The mayors appoint members of the EDGE board and have hiring and firing authority over president Reid Dulberger. Dulberger said he answers to both the board and the mayors.

During an April 10 council meeting, Spinosa described the EDGE structure as "broken" and said he intended to come forward with an amendment to fix it.